r/F1Technical • u/ProvenOrganism • Nov 23 '24

Safety Long term effects of massive crashes

Usually we hear of injuries and deaths as a direct impact of big crashes. Will there be long term effects on the body from sustaining to many Gs, for those who got off "without a scratch"?

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u/cw-f1 Nov 23 '24

Boxing punch to the head ~ 50-60g

F1 crash ~ 50-250g

Except boxers don’t have a helmet or a HANS device, and get repeatedly hit every fight.

I doubt there are many long term effects for an F1 driver from ‘regular’ crashes let’s say, but obviously a huge one could perhaps give you a longer term injury.

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u/Fly4Vino Nov 23 '24

For those with morbid interest in high G impacts

Available to read online

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Naval_Flight_Surgeon%27s_Manual,_Second_Edition_(IA_USNFlightSurgeonsManual1978).pdf.pdf)

Chapters on Accident Survivability and Autopsy symptoms v g forces

1

u/catsgr8rthanspoonies Nov 25 '24

They are also not exposed to the same amount of sub-concussive hits that lead to most of the damage in contact sport athletes.

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u/mrandish Nov 25 '24

Yeah, any high-impact head trauma before a previous head impact has fully healed is bad. However, F1 drivers in recent years don't have serious crashes nearly as often as boxers fight and NFL tackles are in hard hits.

Even one really hard hit still isn't good but F1 drivers aren't near the level of potentially dangerous sequential exposure boxers, MMA fighters and NFL players are.